In that decade, the Senate leadership began agreeing to allow measures that were facing a filibuster to be put aside while the chamber acted on other bills. The move was intended to prevent opposition to a single bill bringing all work in the chamber to halt, but it also meant that the filibuster changed from an energy-draining maneuver involving lengthy speeches to a mere objection, or threat to object.
Over time the number of filibusters skyrocketed. There is no sure-fire way of counting how many bills are filibustered in a year because of the nebulous nature of the threats. But a count of votes to try to overcome a filibuster, the nearest reliable proxy, shows such votes in the legislative session. That's up from such votes in the previous two years. In there were six. Putting filibustered bills aside "made filibustering actually more successful, and even less costly, which was not intended.
And it might have, paradoxically, made things worse," said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University who co-wrote a book on the filibuster.
There have already been changes, in addition to changing the number of votes required for cloture. In , Democrats removed the vote threshold for voting on most nominees for administration jobs, apart from the Supreme Court, allowing them to advance on a simple majority vote. In , Republicans did the same thing for Supreme Court nominees.
Both the and changes were made by simple majority votes. They had pent-up pressure to enact an agenda that includes spending trillions to bolster the economy and battle the pandemic, expanding voting rights and helping millions of immigrants in the U. But Democrats have a slender House majority and control the Senate only because of the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. That means that to overcome a filibuster, Democrats need support from at least 10 Republicans, a heavy lift in a time of intense partisanship.
According to Senate records dating back to World War I, the number of votes to end filibusters in any two-year Congress never reached until the sessions. It hit a high of in the Congress, mostly on Trump appointees that Republicans running the Senate were pushing to confirmation.
It takes a simple majority, 51 votes, to change how the Senate cuts off filibusters. But with Democrats eager to enact their priorities before they lose their fragile majority, their support for discarding filibusters has grown.
Yet Democrats lack the votes to do that. Others in that category include House-passed measures easing voting access, expanding citizenship opportunities for immigrants and curbing gun rights.
The Senate spent much of this week debating a bipartisan bill aimed at strengthening the U. This was the most important change in Senate standing rules — or, to be precise, in their interpretation — since at least It allowed Democrats to confirm a significant number of nominations for President Barack Obama who were being blocked by the Republican minority. Just over three years later, the Senate, now under GOP control, voted to apply the same interpretation to nominations to the Supreme Court.
The immediate result, of course, was the slim confirmations of Neil Gorsuch and later Brett Kavanaugh. This threshold for ending debate still applies to most legislation, including appropriations bills and most laws in areas such as military policy, the environment or civil rights.
But by creating the various restrictions on its use in recent years, the Senate has repeatedly recognized that the vote threshold is often dysfunctional and that the costs to effective governance are too high. The norms that support the supermajority Senate are eroding. I believe the Senate should change its rules to allow a simple majority to close debate on any bill, nomination or other matter, while also guaranteeing a minimum period of debate for any piece of legislation, which would allow the minority position to be voiced and debated.
In so doing, the Senate would end its undemocratic pretensions and resume its prescribed and limited role in the system of checks and balances.
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